Don't forget your sippy cup

Instead, I'll share with you the results of a little between-classroom brainstorming about how office life could learn a little bit from grade school life [1].

So, in no particular order, here are some ideas for how to run your next Web 2.0 [2] startup:

• Forget calendars, try periods! Every period is 50 minutes, with a 10 minute break in between. “What are you doing 4^th period? Wanna get together to talk about our alpha invite strategy?” “I have a yellow fade discussion then.” “How about 5^th period?” “Sounds good.” Make a rule that no meeting can span two periods without a good reason, and why not actually ring a bell at the start and end of each period.

• Lots of wall art! The best thing about grade school classrooms are the walls—they're covered with great stuff! Charts of the alphabet or the periodic table, ground rules about about classroom behavior, plus lots and lots of stuff produced by the kids. Artifacts everywhere, and in color!

• Nap area! Of course.

• Field trips! Everyone needs to get out and see the big bad world … whether it's market research, a trip to the local geek museum or even the bar down the street. After all, what would you rather go on—a strategic planning offsite, or a field trip!

Via Jason Kottke [3], “schoolwork [4]”

Back durring my first week at Negiyo, I kept having flashbacks to high school. The treatment of us [DELETED-peons-DELETED] non-management employees as kids. The long hallway down towards the cafeteria. The small desks. Being sent to the [DELETED-Principal's office-DELETED] HR (Human Resources) department.

I thought I had died and gone back to high school.

But now grade (or elementary) school. Kindergarten through 5^th grade. That wasn't so bad. And I could definitely deal with nap time. I wonder how Smirk would go for the idea?

=> [1] http://sippey.typepad.com/moblog/2005/11/kindergarten_to.html | [2] http://msippey.tadalist.com/lists/public/155420 | [3] http://www.kottke.org/remainder/05/11/9906.html | [4] http://sippey.typepad.com/filtered/2005/11/schoolwork.html

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